Digital cameras capture, process, and store digital images. These digital images can be transferred to other devices for viewing, storage and printing. In many cases, digital images are captured and then “shared” over a network, such as the Internet, with family and friends.
Digital cameras can transfer user-selected images over wireless networks, as described in commonly-assigned U.S. Pat. No. 7,936,391 to Ward et al., entitled “Digital camera with communications interface for selectively transmitting images over a cellular phone network and a wireless LAN network to a destination,” which is incorporated herein by reference. Ward et al. describe how a user of a digital camera can select one of a plurality of communications icons in order to transfer user-selected digital images from the digital camera to a selected destination over one of a plurality of communications networks. This patent also describes how the user-selected images can be identified using an “image utilization” file, which identifies the digital images to be transferred to the selected destination. In some embodiments, the image utilization file is an “Auto Transfer” file as defined in the well-known DPOF 1.1 standard.
It is known to provide a communication device for interconnecting a digital camera to a communications network, for example as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,750,902 to Steinberg, et al., entitled “Camera network communication device.” This patent describes communications devices that can use various wireless communications technologies, including cellular connections and unlicensed wireless frequencies, to transfer camera data to multiple destinations.
It is known to utilize a wireless digital camera and cellular phone to provide a multi-point wireless link, for example as described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,526,314 to Kennedy, entitled “Remote data storage and retrieval for portable electronics.” This patent describes a Bluetooth-enabled camera that communicates to a cellular telephone, which in turn uses a 3G wireless link to remotely store digital images captured by the wireless digital camera on an Internet-connected remote storage device.
It is also known to provide wireless digital cameras that can transfer images to a “smart phone.” For example, the Samsung SH100 digital camera sold by Samsung Electronics America includes a WiFi modem which can transfer images to other devices, including smart phones. By loading a custom software application (APP) on the smart phone, the smart phone can be used as a remote shutter release to control the capture of digital images by the digital camera.
It is also known to wirelessly transfer images from a digital camera to a smart phone in order to use the smart phone to share digital images over a cellular data communications network, such as a “3G” network. For example, the company Eye-Fi of Mountain View, Calif. sells a “Mobile X2” SDHC format memory card, which includes a Flash memory to store digital images captured by a digital camera. It also includes a WiFi modem to transfer the digital images over a WiFi network to a computer, a smart phone or a network connection to a sharing web site (such as FaceBook or YouTube).
While it is often desirable to wirelessly share digital images from digital cameras with various sharing destinations, it can be difficult to establish preferred connections from a digital camera to a preferred wireless network when several different wireless networks having different image-transfer related capabilities operate in the same location.
There remains a need to provide improved wireless digital cameras which can easily establish communications with a preferred wireless network, and enable user-selected images to be quickly and easily shared with multiple sharing destinations, no matter where the digital camera is located as images are captured.